Venezuela remains in crisis. (See Dark Times for Socialist Venezuela and Venezuela’s Dying Industries.) It seems reasonable to expect a governmental turnover in the election scheduled for Sunday. But many struggling citizens hardly notice the presidential candidates making their last-minute pitches for votes. Those potential voters are busy with more pressing matters—such as finding their next meal.
As 47-year-old mother Vaceliza Villa paused on a busy street in Caracas, another woman with a megaphone called out to passersby. She encouraged them to vote for one of current President Nicolas Maduro’s challengers. But Villa paid little attention.
“I really don’t care what happens on Sunday,” says Villa, holding up a bag of raw chicken skins. Typically considered butcher’s waste, that’s what will feed her and her 6-year-old daughter this week. “My priority is paying for this.”
Despite impassioned pleas by Maduro’s opponents, the largest response is apathy. Shortages of everything from water to medicine go unresolved amid the grim economic crisis. The likely result is that Madura will come away from Sunday’s election with another six years to continue the devastation his socialist programs have brought to Venezuela.
Polls suggest that voter turnout could be the lowest since 1998. About one million Venezuelans who would have supported an opposition candidate have fled the country in recent years.
Maduro’s main challenger, Henri Falcon, draws tiny crowds as he crisscrosses the country. Long-shot candidate Javier Bertucci gets the biggest turnout. He is a television evangelist whose appeal has been the free soup he serves at rallies. But a bowl of soup lasts only a day. It may not sustain attendees enough to divert their interests from finding the next meal to casting a vote on Sunday.
In addition to basic survival needs distracting Venezuelans from making the effort to vote, a full 71 percent surveyed say they don’t trust the electoral council—which is controlled by government officials loyal to Maduro. Maduro himself undermines the populace’s hope for change. He boasts almost daily that he will receive a record number of votes on Sunday. Those declarations further demoralize an already demoralized constituency.
The election is playing out as the inflation rate doubles every 35 days—making it impossible for wages to keep up with rising costs of basic needs.
(AP Photo: Vaceliza Villa says she doesn’t care about the election on Sunday. “My priority is paying for this,” she says of a bag of chicken skin that will feed her and her daughter in the upcoming week.)
